Why I loathe Oprah. by Danelle O'Shea

You know, I used to love Oprah. When I was married, and not working I watched Oprah religiously. Katie still loves it.

Oprah Winfrey is a modern demagogue. She's like the soccer mom's Mussolini, prescribing what to wear, what to read, who to vote for, and even what to eat.

Winfrey has carefully constructed public identity that has her gushing over celebrity guests ("I'm such a big fan, I can't believe I'm meeting you"- like she couldn't just pick up the phone and dial their number), making smart-ass quips about bureaucracy and little facts of life which she probably no longer faces and generally looking like a middle to low-income housewife.

I find her pious, inattentive and highly interruptive. and that's just her interview skills. She is hypocritical, (sp?) touting Christianity out of one side of her mouth, but her practices and protocol are very new age. I don't care which one you are, just pick one. You can't have a relationship with Jesus and the Goddesses at the same time. Jesus gets jealous. There's no karma in the Bible.

Also bothersome is that fact that whatever a guest's problems happen to be, Oprah has had that problem also, and attempts to relate it to her eating disorder.

Winfrey and her Ego live in a world of their own, her highly successful O magazine illustrates her epic distance from the reality of most Americans. I picked up one in the Library store the other day and thumbed through it..it suggested you dress up a "simple" pair of jeans with a $200 designer blouse. Sure.

Oprah's ego came out even further in an interview on Biography I saw. She was talking about "Beloved" her big-budget flop-o-rama, and she said she was "devastated" and feeling "rejected" by its box office failure. It was all about her. Not once did she take into account that perhaps the film was too long, or too bloated, or too weak to stand under its own high-art pretentiousness. No, Winfrey blamed all of us; Beloved was a perfect movie and we were just too dumb to get it.

And Dr. Phil. Don't get me started. Oops, too late. It looks like she's attempting to tackle substantive issues again..watch out! She has been singing the praises of and granting ample airtime to Cro-Magnon lifestyle-guru Dr. Phil McGraw. For those who don't know, Dr. Phil (as he's always called) is a psychologist, "life strategist" and best-selling self-help author with a kind of "tough love minus the love" approach to people and their problems. Dr. Phil doesn't so much talk as shout and yell, and with his intimidating presence and take-no-prisoners-failure-isn't-an-option style, he comes across like one of the most arrogant, thoroughly unpleasant people on the planet -- the bastard son of Judge Judy and Bobby Knight. The buzz phrase I've heard lately for this is "Insult Media". no thanks. Yet for some reason, viewers tune in to watch Dr. Phil visit Oprah every week, as they insult callers and audience members who are brave enough (desperate enough?) to bring their personal problems to this forum. The put downs from Dr. Phil are, he says, for their own good -- it's all in the name of his favorite catch-phrase: "getting real."

Then again, maybe..Orpah brings back the memories of being a lonely bored housewife sitting on my ass in my underwear eating Twinkies and drinking Diet Cola. {shrug}

I know there's a lot of Oprah lovers. To each his own, seriously. I'm not telling you not to like her, I'm just telling you why I don't. By request.

I also don't like Helen Hunt, Meg Ryan and Jay Leno. lol.